It is my second week of posting and engaging here on Hive and I must say that I find this environment very complex with so much content and things to explore and because of this also very stimulating.
I have written on 2 different platforms so far and Hive being the 3rd one is fast becoming my favourite. In the past I would struggle with daily writing. Not because I have nothing to say. I love to talk a lot! But somehow I wasn’t very motivated.
This changed drastically since I become serious with Hiving. That’s because engagement here is so much better and daily reading constantly inspires me to write. So many communities, contests and challenges to choose from. Finally the 1000’s of pictures stored in my photo albums have a purpose! I can show them off on Hive and they will forever stay here in the blockchain, where I can leave a mark behind myself.
Back to today’s topic though - mushrooms - the proud members of fungi world. Yesterday, when my friend was scrolling through my photo gallery from my trip to #Poland, she said:
‘You have a real fetish for mushrooms 🍄’
Haha 😂 I’m not sure if I would call it a fetish, but yes, I find these little creatures fascinating and I do take many pictures of them. The more I learn about them, the more my fascination grows and the more I still want to learn. The one above was my friend’s favourite from a batch I sent her while still in Poland. Amanita Muscari - the most famous mushroom of all times. Even Super Mario was a fan of them!
My aunties would always tell me to stay away of them, as they’re poisonous. That’s not the whole truth about these fascinating creatures. In small doses and correctly prepared they have hallucinogenic properties. That’s not something I say from the experience though - I never tried eating them, but I read a lot. Some people also know how to make various healing products from them. Also not something I have learned so far, but who knows - I might try one day 😉
I have written a few articles about mushrooms in the past, but fungi community here is on another level. I love the fact that there are so many members posting weekly from allover the globe. This way I can see the mushrooms I’ve never seen before and continue to learn about this fascinating creatures.
Growing up in Poland, where most people go mushroom picking in season pretty much forced me to learn about them. By force I don’t mean something unpleasant though. It was a very pleasant activity of every summer I spent at my grandparents place.
This and forest berry picking. I loved our family trips to the forests. The area of Poland where I was born is the greenest area of Poland and my grandparents live ‘in the middle of nowhere’ as I like to call it. Surrounded by forests and little lakes in whichever direction you would choose to walk. Although I love these holidays with forests trips, I didn’t realise how lucky I was. I was learning live skills at a very young age without realising it, because it was SO much fun to spend my days in the hunt of edibles abundantly growing in these beautiful forests.
I came to appreciate it more as an adult. The knowledge I gained then stayed untouched and until today I can recognise most edible mushrooms by looking, tasting and smelling them. The sensory experiences always stay with us when we associate them with FUN. The mushroom on the above picture however is a new type that I don’t get to see in English forests. While exploring the forest with my auntie we have seen a huge amounts of them in October.
She told me some people pick them and with the right preparation they are also edible. I don’t know the name of them in English, will have to search for is at some point, but in Polish she called them ‘Sarna’ which directly translates to a deer.
The structure of them is very firm, so they kept themselves well even after a few days of heavy rain, contrary to other edibles that were soaked and almost melted away by the time we got to them. Like this huge Boletus Edulis below:
It would have been such a catch if we have found it earlier. By the time we saw it, it sure had a fascinating shape to it, but underneath the cap was totally soaked and eaten by many creatures. We took a picture of it to enjoy the size, then threw the pieces of it around, so hopefully the spores will spread and more of these beauties will grow on the fertile ground of the forest next season.
Although my knowledge about mushrooms is expansive comparing to an average Joe, I don’t claim to know it all. I still follow the rule ‘if you’re not sure, don’t pick it’.
After all, I don’t want to damage my liver or worse yet - die by consuming one of my beloved members of fungi family. In the cases of unknown mushrooms I might not try eating them, but I still enjoy taking pictures of them. Who knows what I can learn about them once I get some and do some reading. I discovered many new types of edible mushrooms this way.
Mostly my new discoveries are not edible, but they’re still pretty and help our environment in recycling all the dead matter in the forests and meadows.
The one above looked a bit like an Oyster mushroom. Truth be told, I don’t have enough experience in picking these though. I only read about them and ate them bought from the local Chinese shop. Maybe I post this in wild foraging groups I joined on fb to see if anyone can help me identify it. For the time being, I left it to grow untouched in the forest.
The discovery of the season must be Polish ‘Rydz’ above. I knew of them from my dad’s stories, I heard about them from a Polish song about ‘Rudy Rudz’, but somehow I never got to learn how exactly it looks and tastes until this year. I saw some that might have looked like Rydz in English forests, but I didn’t picked any. This year I got first hand experience of identifying it from my auntie. We picked a lot of them and she showed me characteristics helpful in spotting one. Now I am armed in knowledge to recognise one that is edible 😍
Opienka above was another one. My auntie never found one before, but she sounded sure that it is edible, so we picked a few of them. They require a bit longer than usual preparation, which we learned from online forums, but we ate them all and everyone is still alive, so I guess she was right 😉 I wouldn’t advise this approach to newbies into foraging though - it can end up not so well if you try it!
Despite my late arrival in Poland, towards the end of October, our foraging trips were very successful. Each day we found many edible and delicious mushrooms to spoil our senses. I dreamt of finding even one King Bolete and I did! Not as big as those I found earlier back home, but I insisted on frying this one on its own in butter and eating it on my sandwich for supper:
This concludes my first entry into #FungiFriday by 
For all newbies in Hive, head over to #TheTerminal . It’s a great place to learn all about this platform and meet some new and friendly people to guide you along the way.
Until next time 💙